I Made a Tier List the Transcendents Are Obsessed With - Chapter 19

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◈ I Made a Tier List the Transcendents Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 19: Do You Have Parents?

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There was something rather unreasonable about physiognomy.

You could usually see it in the comments beneath articles about criminals.

This guy looked like a criminal from the start.

I knew he would turn out that way.

...People said things like that.

Whenever I saw comments like those, I often wondered, Then why on earth didn't you say so earlier?

Of course, voicing that question would start a full-blown dogfight, so I usually kept it to myself.

In any case, physiognomy was generally unreasonable.

It was often used as a tool by busybodies who loved adding their two cents wherever they went.

Still, I agreed with part of it.

Some of a person's tendencies could be sensed from their first impression alone.

For example, if someone wore a short-sleeved shirt from some sports brand, glow-in-the-dark pants, and had an irezumi tattoo engraved across their forearm, you could be certain they had the innate traits of a thug.

In this world, that meant a few knocked-out teeth, cheap drugs constantly in their mouth, and old-model military cyberware fitted onto one arm.

Before I accessed the Transcendent Gallery, they were the kind of people I should never have even made eye contact with.

In the same way, you could immediately spot someone's foolishness.

In my previous life, I wasn't especially good at it, but... I did work in sales.

After enduring it for several years, even someone like me had developed an eye for spotting suckers who could become targets.

People who signed suspicious contracts that required them to hand over several hundred thousand won every month without giving them a proper look.

"U-um... So, this part here is..."

That sucker was right in front of me now.

Naturally, in my previous life, I would have felt fairly good about the certainty of improving my sales record. Maybe not enough to cheer.

"I don't get it..."

But now, all I felt was despair.

I squeezed my eyes shut at the miserable sight unfolding before me in real time.

"Wendy."

"Yes?"

"How on earth did you learn System Magic all the way through Grade 7?"

"...By working hard?"

Maybe I should at least praise her effort.

But I couldn't give a wholehearted compliment or admiration in response because...

"Haah."

I had already said it.

"...Let's learn it again, slowly."

It felt like a mission marked [Difficulty: Easy] had been reset to normal difficulty or higher.

Raise a System Mage with the Spirit-Binding Heavenly Meridian Body into a Mage at the path of magic rank!

Improving that constitution wouldn't be difficult as long as I had time, so I had believed I could accomplish it easily.

But there was one condition I had never foreseen.

"Uuugh!"

"..."

A truly brutal condition.

"A Mage can't memorize spell formulas."

* * *

I became a Mage with a click.

That was an undeniable fact, so I had no intention of denying it or making excuses for it.

Every principle and law involved in using magic was already inherent within me.

All I needed was a little insight to break through a boundary.

I had even glimpsed fragments of that through the original novel.

Therefore, perhaps it wasn't right for me to call someone a dullard.

"Ah, so you mean I should diffract the circuit here like this? Attribute Conversion is..."

"...Right! Wendy, shall we continue tomorrow?"

"Yep."

Still, at this point, I couldn't help thinking that unfair assessment.

Being incredibly cute really was Wendy's greatest strength.

"This might be an abrupt question, but do your parents..."

"They farm back in my hometown. Both my parents and my younger siblings are ordinary people. I'm the only Mage. My siblings help our parents back home."

"Mm. Both parents are alive, and you have a harmonious family. I thought so."

"...?"

Wendy tilted her head, apparently not understanding my fervent reverse orphan joke.

Perhaps because of our earlier conversation, I could sense traces of a girl who had grown up properly in a happy family.

This was why one's family environment was important.

There had to be a process of getting worked over by the older boys at the orphanage every night, having one's meager school allowance extorted at school, then growing up and leaving the family section of one's resume blank.

"For now, memorize everything up to here by tomorrow. Got it? Don't try to understand it. Just memorize it."

"...Nyeeeh."

The girl who had been so lively until this morning had become remarkably limp.

Naturally, several hours of private lessons had affected her, but... she seemed to have realized that I was softer than expected.

That was simply my true nature.

We would be together for quite a while, after all.

I could put on a dignified front for a little while, but maintaining the false words and behavior I used outside was far too exhausting.

Trudge, trudge.

Wendy headed toward the door with drained steps, then bowed her head toward me.

"I'll see you tomorrow..."

After moving her lips silently for a moment, she blushed and spoke.

"And thank you. Truly. I'll work hard so I won't disappoint you!"

"...All right."

I let out a brief laugh, and only then did her expression relax a little.

The vitality that usually filled her face slowly returned.

Well, she must have been blaming herself for learning so slowly.

Tap tap tap tap.

Mixed emotions could be felt in the quick footsteps softly echoing through the hallway.

Her thoughts were probably terribly complicated in many ways.

"Don't worry."

I had honestly been a little dumbfounded by what happened earlier.

But even if her talent was slightly inferior in that regard, it wouldn't become a major problem.

Her innate constitution was hundreds of millions of times more important.

No matter how much natural comprehension one possessed in learning, if the qualities one had from birth were lacking, one could not grow beyond a certain level.

That was why this world could not help feeling unfair.

"...What an absolute peak of unfairness."

The Gallery users I was looking at right now proved it.

[Shit lolololol]

[Wow, I was just traveling through interstellar space and saw a planet next to me.]

It seriously looked like boobs. (Photo)

- Whoa, it really does lolololol

ㄴIdiots...

ㄴPlease seal my qi and blood for just one year.

[Don't believe people who say you'll meet women if you advance your realm.]

I trusted only what my mother said, and I've been single for 3.9 billion years.

Don't say things like that about mortal concubines. Do they even count as women?

- Not that long, yeah.

ㄴIs your mother still alive?

ㄴOP) She became a Transcendent before I did.

ㄴWhat about your father?

ㄴOP) He passed away.

ㄴThat's it.

ㄴWhat do you mean, "That's it," you bastard? Lol

ㄴThe scary thing is that cases like this really do happen sometimes...

"Ugh, fuck."

It was a parade of evidence that one's attained realm and maturity had to be viewed separately.

Compared to this, Tier List debates were incredibly wholesome.

If anything, I was making the Gallery healthier.

In fact, shitposts like these had occasionally appeared before being buried.

Meanwhile, the debate about the World's Strongest Swordsman that I had casually thrown out recently was still going strong.

[Honestly, you could say Oz played it safe this time.]

No matter where you draw the line for the World's Strongest Swordsman, it'll inevitably catch fire.

If you divide them by rank, you have to line them up, and there will always be people who can't accept the reasoning no matter what.

With a Tier List, you can just place evenly matched people in the same tier, so it's possible to play it safe.

"...Oh."

There was a fairly sharp take among it all.

It hadn't received much attention, but they had gotten at least half of it right.

This was definitely one reason Tier Lists and ranking lists were used differently depending on the subject.

Tier Lists were for when the concepts involved were broad and the number of subjects was large.

And when it was difficult to rank them perfectly.

Ranking lists were for when the concepts involved were limited and the number of subjects was small.

When they could be ranked precisely.

But the reason the other half of that post was wrong lay in its content.

I wanted the Gallery to go up in flames.

I wanted as many views, recommendations, and comments as possible as a result.

This Tier List would probably cause no small stir as well.

So, the claim that I had played it safe to avoid controversy was wrong.

[Wow, these Veterans' Association bastards have insane firepower.]

[Agh, upvote manipulation, comment manipulation, aaaargh.]

[The Salmurim guys are joining in too lol. I'm losing my mind.]

[Oz, please just hurry up and give us the conclusion.]

[Everyone is going to die!!!!!]

...Wasn't the current state of things enough to tell?

Cries condemning the chaos filled every corner of the Gallery.

[Reteim's Hero of the Previous Generation is invincible and can freely travel through all thirteen dimensions.]

[Reteim's Hero of the Previous Generation is free from all causality, and the fact that we breathe is entirely due to the Hero's grace.]

[Reteim's Hero of the Previous Generation can turn crumbled grass roots into a World Tree, a fact that can even be found in murals of the ancient Giant race.]

[Reteim's Hero of the Previous Generation said, "Yes." Then an astrologer asked, "Can you see the future?"]

[The Sword Maiden can command every sword in all creation with a mere gesture.]

[The Sword Maiden can even deflect the Precepts Sect Leader's Causal Restriction with protective aura.]

[If the Sword Maiden does not lift her spoon, even Black Stars stop absorbing. This is proven by the testimony of a martial artist who returned from the event horizon.]

[The Sword Maiden is extremely busty and enormous. I can prove this hundreds of times using the trash can in my room.]

ㄴOkClanBitch) Find out who this bastard is.

ㄴAt your command!!!

"Heh heh."

Seeing how much they enjoyed it filled my chest with pride.

I hoped they would fight even more.

Footnotes:

Jin's "reverse orphan joke" plays on a common web fiction trope where a tragic orphan background is treated as a protagonist's advantage.

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